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SIX years after Col Ziaul Haq led the massacre of Palestinian guerrillas in Jordan on behalf of the Hashemite king, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto hosted the 1974 Islamic nations` summit in Lahore where every leader of the ramshackle OIC showered praise on Yasser Arafat and his PLO.
If the duplicity was less jarring in India`s apparent support to the Palestinian quest for a homeland it was due to a slightly subtler diplomatic posture.
If former foreign minister Jaswant Singh is to be believed, New Delhi`s support to PLO stemmed from a domestic exigency — of pandering to Indian Muslims for their votes — and not for the liberation of Palestine from foreign occupation. The moment that need for votes lost a slice of its value because of new domestic political equations, ties with Israel were not an issue.
It may not be a coincidence that the demolition of the Babri mosque and diplomatic ties with the Zionist state came almost simultaneously under the secular premier Narasimha Rao`s vigil. In other words, a secular India saw the Palestinian struggle as a Muslim issue, not very different from Iran`s position today or the idea promoted by Bhutto under the banner of the OIC.
Dr George Habash, also known as the conscience of the Palestinian revolution, belied the commonplace perspectives held or promoted by these countries. His death on Saturday from a severe heart attack at the age of 81 followed a long and courageous struggle that was often a lonely toil to keep the liberation of Palestine above religious or sectarian zealotry. He was not a Muslim but a non-practising Christian. As a Marxist, he did not espouse hatred of Jews but fought hard against the racially inspired doctrine of Zionism.
I first met Dr Habash in Beirut in 1982 together with his more famous protégé Leila Khaled who was already notorious for hijacking planes a dozen years before. My meeting with both took place shortly after Ariel Sharon had supervised a vengeful massacre of Palestinian civilians in the notorious Sabra and Shatila. Yasser Arafat, his brother Fathi and sister Madiha were there too with a gaggle of globally famous comrades.
A moving tribute to the Palestinian victims was read out by human rights activist and actor Vanessa Redgrave. Habash was recovering from a brain surgery, if I remember correctly, but he was in great form not the least because the Camp David accord of 1979 had brought together the various quarrelling factions of the PLO. It would have been difficult otherwise to see him on the same platform as Arafat.
I still remember his profound words when Habash found a quiet moment for an interview. “Charity takes over when revolutionary zeal wanes,” he had said. In other words, don`t count on any support from anyone other than yourself. The Arab and Muslim states have their own axes to grind in the Palestinian question. This was the gist of the main message from the interview.
In a significant way, the perspective of the PFLP, which Habash founded as a closely-knit group of Palestinian guerrillas, was not different from Vanessa Redgrave or Noam Chomsky, though both have been vilified as advocates of anti-Semitism regardless of the fact that Chomsky is himself a Jew (as indeed was Karl Marx for George Habash). Both were haunted by the accusations.
In 1980, Redgrave made her first American TV debut as concentration camp survivor Fania Fénelon in the Arthur Miller-scripted TV movie `Playing for Time` — a part for which she won an Emmy as Outstanding Lead Actress in 1981. The decision to cast Redgrave as Fénelon was, however, a source of controversy for Jewish lobbyists. In light of Redgrave`s support for the Palestinian cause, even Fénelon objected to her casting.
Redgrave was perplexed by such hostility, stating in her 1991 autobiography her long-held belief that “the struggle against anti-Semitism and for the self-determination of the Palestinians form a single whole”. I am very clear that the PFLP`s understanding of its battle with Israel was not too different from Ms Redgrave`s.
Living as an exile for most of his life, Habash settled in Amman, Jordan, where he opened a people`s clinic. But he was soon accused of involvement in an attempt to overthrow King Hussein, and driven underground with a 33-year prison sentence hanging over his head. He fled to Syria, where he became a fawning supporter of Egypt`s President Nasser.
As the Guardian noted in its obituary to Habash, once converted from Nasserism to armed struggle himself, Habash “characteristically took it to those extremes which marked him, ever after, as one of the great patrons of international terrorism — though he was never to take on the demoniacal stature of the Venezuelan, Carlos the Jackal (Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez), or his fellow Palestinian, Abu Nidal. But for a brief, heady span, Habash and his newly formed PFLP held the world in thrall.”
George Habash was seen even by his Palestinian rivals as a finer and more honest leader than them all. He was, they said, an impassioned defender of Palestine, and a firm believer in its nationhood. He had an unwavering dedication to his cause, and a strong moral fibre that reflected on his policies and career, which spanned a 40-year period.
In fact, George Habash represented the very antithesis of present-day Palestinian politics suave, urbane, American University of Beirut-educated, secular, independent and unmarred by financial and moral improprieties. “Perhaps his very difference from the ultra-religious Hamas as well as from the ultra-accommodating Fatah was the reason behind his decision to steer clear from public involvement in Palestinian politics as of the mid-1990s onwards,” wrote well-known Syrian critic Sami Moubayed.
He stood down as PFLP leader in 2000, four years before the death of Arafat, and six years before the Islamists of Hamas won their electoral victory. The transformation of the Palestinian movement from a secular ideal in which Christians, Jews and Muslims would be equal partners into a predominantly religious campaign has deepened its isolation worldwide.
I asked Ayatollah Jannati, a leading Iranian cleric, about the consequences of leaning heavily on a single religion to carry the cause of Palestine. He was on a different trajectory, urging Shias and Sunnis of the world to unite. But Ayatollah, I pressed on, now that the Muslims you have in mind are not coming to your aid on the Palestinian question — nor are they likely to in the distant future — how do you regard the help that you are getting from non-Muslims, many of them in countries like India, people like Redgrave, Chomsky and of course Hugo Chavez?
“That is a point to ponder,” the cleric retorted, evidently not prepared for a discussion. Habash was wary of engaging clerics for his cause.
The writer is Dawn`s correspondent in New Delhi.
